Greetings Fellow Dice Fans!

During the month of December, I’m featuring a different cold/ice/snow related card each week to celebrate the winter holidays. Today, we’re going to take a look at Captain Cold: Rogue Leader from the DC Green Arrow and The Flash set.

I’m also adding a new Prime Rating to each of my Confusing Card of the Week articles. They will follow the same rating system as the Unlimited Competitive Rating, since Prime is also a competitive format. You can find a breakdown of how I choose my ratings on my sticky article, Helpful Sites and About this Blog.

Ruling – Ability

Captain Cold has a While Active ability. While Active abilities will work regardless of how many of that character’s dice are active in the Field Zone. Think of this ability like a light – it’s either on or it’s off.

Captain Cold’s ability involves the use of Action Dice. Action Dice are any dice that do not have attack and defense stats on them. There are Basic Action Dice that all have a Pow! symbol on them and then there are Non-Basic Action Dice that have symbols related to what the card is. Captain Cold’s ability will trigger when you use any type of Action Die, as long as he’s active. The image below shows the difference between Basic and Non-Basic Action Dice. There are many more Non-Basic Action Dice, but all Basic Action Dice have the same image in different colors.

While Captain Cold is active, when you use an Action Die, a target opposing Sidekick will lose the chance to attack or block for that turn. His ability is not optional and if your opponent has a legal target for Captain Cold’s ability, you must target that character.

Any die that is considered a Sidekick is a potential target for Captain Cold’s ability. Ally Characters count as Sidekicks while they’re active in the Field Zone, meaning they can be targeted by Captain Cold’s ability.

Action Dice normally can only be ‘used’ on your turn. When you use an action die, the die is moved from your Reserve Pool and either placed Out of Play or into the Field Zone depending on the type of Action Die you’re using. There are special abilities that allow you to use an Action Die on your opponent’s turn. One such example of this is Mr. Mxyzptlk: 5th Dimension. His ability says:

“While Mr. Mxyzptlk is active, when an opponent uses a Basic Action Die, you may use a copy of that Basic Action Die.”

When you use a copy of a Basic Action Die with Mr. Mxyzptlk’s ability, it satisfies the requirements for Captain Cold’s ability allowing you to target an opposing Sidekick and prevent it from attacking or blocking. This is one way you can benefit from Captain Cold’s ability on your opponent’s turn to stop a Sidekick from attacking you.

As a side note, Mr. Mxyzptlk: 5th Dimension only allows you to use a copy of a Basic Action Die and not a Non-Basic Action Die that your opponent uses. You need to pay very close attention to wording when playing characters like Mr. Mxyzptlk and Captain Cold.

You won’t benefit from using Captain Cold’s ability during the Attack Step because characters are already assigned to attack and block before you’re able to use Action Dice. You can still target the Sidekick, but the ability won’t have any effect on a character that’s already declared as a blocker.

Miscellaneous Card Information

Captain Cold: Rogue Leader is a Bolt Character and has the Villain affiliation. This card also has a Max Dice of four.

Examples

These examples are for information purposes only, to show what would happen in certain scenarios. I am not suggesting that these examples are the best outcomes for each scenario and each example only features relevant parts of the turn, not the entire turn.

Example One:
Using Captain Cold’s ability during your Main Step.

~ I have two Captain Cold dice active. I have a Kryptonite: Green Death die showing an action face in my Reserve Pool. My opponent has an Oracle: Master Investigator and an Alfred Pennyworth: MI-5 active in the Field Zone.
~ (Main Step) I use my Kryptonite (sending it Out of Play) and target Oracle.
~ (Main Step) I use Captain Cold’s ability to target Alfred, making Alfred unable to block.

Example Two:
Using Captain Cold’s ability during the Attack Step.

~ I have two Captain Cold dice active. I have a Kryptonite: Green Death die showing an action face in my Reserve Pool. My opponent has an Oracle: Master Investigator and an Alfred Pennyworth: MI-5 active in the Field Zone.
~ (Attack Step – Assign Attackers) I assign one of my Captain Cold dice (3A/3D) as an attacker, moving it into the Attack Zone.
~ (Attack Step – Assign Blockers) My opponent assigns Alfred (1A/1D) as a blocker and places him in the Attack Zone in front of my Captain Cold.
~ (Attack Step – Actions and Globals) I use my Kryptonite and target Alfred. I target Alfred with Captain Cold’s ability, but he’s already blocking and can’t be removed as a blocker with Captain Cold’s ability. I don’t use any other Actions or Globals.
~ (Attack Step – Assign and Resolve Damage) Captain Cold assigns his three attack to Alfred and Alfred assigns his one attack to Captain Cold. Alfred is KO’d but since I used Kryptonite on his die, he doesn’t get his ability and will go to the Prep Area.

~ I have a Mr. Mxyzptlk: 5th Dimension and a Captain Cold active. My opponent has a Sidekick in the Field Zone.
~ (Main Step) My opponent has a Power Bolt Action Die and uses it to deal two damage to me.
~ (Main Step) Mr. Mxyzptlk allows me to use a copy of Power Bolt and I choose to do so, dealing two damage to my opponent. Captain Cold’s ability triggers and I target the Sidekick my opponent has active in the Field Zone, making it unable to attack this turn.

Official Sources

You can find a ruling that relates to the interaction between Captain Cold and Mr. Mxyzptlk, here.

You can find a ruling that explains the interaction of abilities like Kryptonite’s on characters already declared as blockers, here.

Unlimited Competitive Play Rating

Captain Cold just doesn’t have what it takes to see major meta play. His ability, with the required use of an Action Die and being limited to only Sidekicks as targets, is definitely not suited for Unlimited. His TFC of six is expensive for what he does and his stats are not worth using this character over another with a more useful ability. There are other ways to accomplish what his ability does, but on a larger scale and more effective as well – Cloudkill. I don’t see this card making it out of any binder or box for a competitive event like WKO.

Captain Cold: Rogue Leader gets a Unlimited rating of zero out of five stars.

PDC Prime Play Rating

I have limited experience with Prime at the moment, so I could very possibly being missing something or have overlooked something. I don’t think Sidekicks – even Allies – will be a huge problem in Prime. If Captain Cold targeted any character, and not just a Sidekick, then he would be much better. Even then, he still wouldn’t hit the rogue team list for me because of his Action Die requirement. I bumped his rating up to a one star instead of zero stars for Prime because there are still many unknowns about the Prime format, but I still can’t recommend this card for Prime play. His TFC for the stats are not impressive and his ability just doesn’t cut it.

Captain Cold: Rogue Leader gets a Prime rating of one out of five stars.

Casual Play Rating

While I don’t think this card is particularly useful, it’s not overly complicated. I think if you paired Captain Cold with the right cards, he might be mildly useful. I could see him with Foot Ninja: Ninja Syndicate and White Tiger: Mystical Amulet. You could use White Tiger’s Global to make them add a Sidekick to the Field, which increases Foot Ninja’s attack and defense, then use an Action Die and make that Sidekick unable to block. That’s a lot of things going on, but most casual teams that I play and see played locally have many facets to them. But my casual ratings are based on the complexity of the card and how difficult the card is for a new player to use, and not only how good the card is. Captain Cold has complex uses with cards like Mr. Mxyzptlk, which may not be immediately noticed or even understood by a beginner. That combo is a great way to teach those particular uses to a player and help them to better understand card wording.

Captain Cold: Rogue Leader gets a casual play rating of three out of five stars.

Opinions on this card? Leave a comment! Is there a card your confused on? Is there a combo that seems too good to be true? Leave me a comment here or message me on Facebook at Dice Dice Kitty and thanks for reading!